1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for determining the pathloss between a base transceiver station and a mobile station of a cellular mobile radio network such as the GSM network.
2. Background of the Invention
In recent years, the use of mobile telephones has become increasingly popular. One such mobile telephone system which is used in Europe and which is implemented as a fully digital cellular network is the GSM network set up according to the specifications of the CEPT committee xe2x80x9cGroupe Speciale Mobilexe2x80x9d.
The GSM network belongs to the group of systems operating on the basis of TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access). In systems using TDMA, data are transmitted using successive TDMA frames. In many cases, each of these frames consists of eight time slots. In each time slot, a data packet is sent in the form of a radio frequency burst having a finite duration and consisting of a set of modulated bits. The time slots are used for transmitting control channels and traffic channels. On the control channels, signaling and synchronization information between a base station (BS) and a number of mobile stations (MS) is exchanged, whereas, on the traffic channels (TCH), data and speech are transmitted. See FIG. 1. One time slot of a traffic channel is assigned to each mobile station so that a base station may be simultaneously connected in a parallel fashion to a number of mobile stations using the same carrier frequency.
According to the GSM standard, the number of mobile stations simultaneously connectable to a single station amounts to eight. The data transfer rates are 9.6 kbit/s for data or 13 kbit/s for speech (TCH/F) as user rates. In addition, half-rate traffic channels (TCH/H) are available at 4.8 kbit/s for data which offer a doubled capacity, i.e. up to 16 mobile stations can be simultaneously connected to a base station using a single carrier frequency.
In order to establish a proper communication between a mobile station and a base station, general information concerning the base station is transmitted from the base station (BS) to the mobile station, i.e. in the downlink direction, using the so called Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH), as shown in FIG. 1. More particularly, the base station transmits TDMA frames which include one Broadcast Control Channel and at least seven full-rate traffic channels or 14 half-rate traffic channels. For transmission of signaling information, 51 frames are combined into a single multi-frame, while for transmission of traffic information, a multi-frame consists of only 26 frames. Such a multi-frame is shown in FIG. 2. The idle frame after the last of the 24 frames used for the traffic channels is not used. Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 2, a Slow Associated Control Channel (SACCH) is provided as one of the dedicated channels and is associated with a traffic channel. The Slow Associated Control Channel is used by the mobile station for transmitting different measurement results to the base station in the uplink direction. Any of a full-rate traffic channel, a half-rate traffic channel and a Standalone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH) is always allocated together with a Slow Associated Control Channel. On the other hand, the base station uses the Slow Associated Control Channel to transmit commands related to power control to the mobile station in the downlink direction.
FIG. 1 shows a block circuit diagram illustrating the structure of the mobile radio network including a mobile station in a single cell according to the GSM specification. The Broadcast Control Channel including the eight time slots is transmitted on the BCCH carrier in all time slots continuously with a constant power and at a standard frequency according to the GSM specification, usually with the highest allowable power. As will be described in detail below, a mobile station periodically measures the signal strength of the BCCH carrier in neighboring cells. In addition, the mobile station also determines the connection quality to the serving cell, i.e. to its own base station, by means of the bit error ratio. The results obtained are used e.g. in the handover process. A handover is a transfer of a mobile station from one channel to another channel of the same cell (intracell handover) or a transfer of the mobile station from one cell to another (neighboring) cell (intercell handover) during an ongoing call.
The power control to be implemented both in the base station as well as in the mobile station serves for minimizing channel interference and for saving energy in the mobile station so as to increase the battery life of the mobile telephone handset. The power control process always precedes a handover process. The transmitting power levels of the mobile stations can be controlled from the maximum power to as low as 20 mW in steps of 2 dB.
For handover purposes, the mobile station controller (MS) measures the signal level received from up to 32 neighboring base stations and transmits the signal levels of its serving cell as well as of those neighboring cells having the six strongest received signal levels and the signal quality value of the serving cell to its own base station. The measured signal level of the serving cell is also to be used for downlink power control, i.e. for power control of the carrier transmitted from the base station to the mobile station. This transmission of the measurement results is even performed during an ongoing call during which speech data are transmitted. The base station conveys the measurement results received from all mobile stations linked thereto to a base station controller (BSC), FIG. 1, which performs averaging and weighting on the measurement data obtained from the base station. In detail, as described above, the transmitted measurement results which are regularly updated comprise the received signal level (RXLEV) and the received signal quality (RXQUAL) of the serving cell of the mobile station as well as the received signal levels of the neighboring cells.
According to the GSM recommendation, the measurement results must be reported at least once a second to the base station. The transmitted value RXLEV of the received signal level is the average of the samples measured in a period of 480 ms containing four multi-frames. The measurement results are transmitted in another cycle of 480 ms also containing four multi-frames. On the other hand, the base station measures only the received signal level on the associated traffic channel in all time slots. The base station controller which analyses the received measurement results decides on the basis of the received data e.g. whether a handover is to be effected.
More particularly, a handover is requested in cases where the transmitting power of a mobile station cannot be further increased, where the measured values are larger or smaller than the threshold values for effecting a handover, or where the transmission could be continued with another cell having a lower pathloss than the serving cell.
From WO-96/21 987 and WO-96/21 998 originating from the applicants of the present invention, mobile radio systems are known in which a power control of the transmitter of the base station as well as of the mobile station is effected. However, since, in these two conventional systems, intercell handovers are prevented due to the fact that a subscriber is only allowed to move within his home cell, the signal strength of the BCCH carrier of neighboring stations is not measured. Therefore, the BCCH carrier is not continuously transmitted, i.e. not in all time slots of a frame, which results in that this system cannot be used for a proper mobile communication between a fixed base station and moving subscribers not restricted to a particular cell.
Furthermore, due to the radio link pathloss between transmitter and receiver the received field strength RXLEV decreases with increasing distance from the transmitter. The pathloss is a critical factor for mobile radio systems since a handover has to be effected if the measured field strength RXLEV falls below the corresponding threshold value. Since the mobile station is allowed to arbitrarily change its location within the entire area covered by the base stations, the distance between the base station and the mobile station which, apart from the carrier frequency used, determines the pathloss may also vary arbitrarily. In case of a handover effected either between two cells or two frequencies, the pathloss will even change abruptly.
Thus, none of the above described systems caters for the variable control of the power of the transmitter of the mobile station and/or the base station, taking into consideration the pathloss between the mobile station and a particular base station. Since the distance between the mobile station and the base station is inherently variable in any type of mobile radio system, and since the frequency may also change, a variable power control would allow to actually compensate for the variations of pathloss occurring between the base station and the mobile station.
For effecting a power control of the mobile station, an accurate estimation of the pathloss between the mobile station and the respective base station is required. However, in order to assess the actual pathloss between base station and mobile station, the actually transmitted signal level has to be known. Since the power of the transmitted signal usually varies from time slot to time slot, the transmitting power is not known with a sufficient accuracy. Therefore, the determination of the pathloss by calculating the difference between transmitted power and received signal level measured by the mobile station is not possible. Hence, since the actual pathloss in current GSM networks can only be obtained if the base station controller knows the power transmitted by the base station, no power control of the carrier is possible on which the Broadcast Control Channel is transmitted. Thus, the BCCH carrier is conventionally transmitted with a constant high power. In contrast thereto, since only the BCCH carrier of neighboring cells is measured, the carrier on which only the traffic channels are transmitted may be power controlled.
The continuous transmission of a high power BCCH carrier, however, represents a serious problem in mobile radio systems since it brings about an increase in the interference level of the network. In detail, when a traffic channel carrier in the cell concerned is the same as the BCCH carrier of a nearby cell, interference in the reception of the traffic channel carrier is caused. This is due to the fact that the radio traffic between a base station and a mobile station to which that specific high power carrier is allocated causes crosstalk and thus disturbs the communication between other base stations and mobile stations using the same carrier. In addition, since the communication is performed between a base station and a specific mobile station at a constant power level, typically at full power, the available frequency spectrum cannot be used effectively, thus also decreasing the network capacity. As a result, these conventional GSM networks suffer from a comparatively low spectral efficiency.
In order to increase the spectral efficiency by keeping the interference in a mobile radio network as low as possible, the power transmitted on each channel is normally set to a minimum level just enough to maintain the communication between base station and mobile station, as is known e.g. from WO-95/07012 filed on Sep. 2, 1994, in the name of the applicants of the present invention. However, since a power control of the BCCH carrier is not available in conventional GSM networks, all traffic channels on that carrier have to be sent at a constant and relatively high power. This inevitably results in a high interference level. The interference is particularly high if only one transmission and reception frequency (TRX) is used by a base station acting as a base transceiver station.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus for determining the pathloss between a base transceiver station and a mobile station in a mobile radio network so as to allow a power control of the Broadcast Control Channel carrier, thereby reducing the interference in the network and increasing the capacity and traffic.
According to the present invention, this object is accomplished by a method for determining the pathloss between a first base transceiver station and a mobile station in a mobile radio network, the mobile station being spatially separated from the first base transceiver station and a second neighboring base transceiver station, the method comprising the steps of transmitting a signal carrier having a transmitting power from the first base transceiver station, detecting the signal level of the signal carrier transmitted by the first base transceiver station after having been received by the mobile station, transmitting the signal level detected by the mobile station from the mobile station to the second base transceiver station, receiving the signal level transmitted by the mobile station in the second base transceiver station, and comparing the transmitting power of the signal carrier transmitted by the first base transceiver station and the received signal level transmitted from the mobile station with each other, thereby obtaining the pathloss between the first base transceiver station and the mobile station.
According to the present invention, this object is also achieved by an apparatus for determining the pathloss between a first base transceiver station and a mobile station in a mobile radio network, the mobile station being spatially separated from the first base transceiver station and a second neighboring base transceiver station, the apparatus comprising transmitting means for transmitting a signal carrier having a transmitting power from the first base transceiver station, the signal level of the signal carrier transmitted from the transmitting means being detected by the mobile station and transmitted to the second base transceiver station, receiving means for receiving the signal level transmitted from the mobile station, and comparing means for comparing the transmitting power of the signal carrier transmitted by the transmitting means and the received signal level transmitted from the mobile station with each other, thereby obtaining the pathloss between the first base transceiver station and the mobile station.
In detail, a mobile station measures the signal level transmitted from neighboring base transceiver stations in the monitoring slot which is the sixth slot after the transmission slot. Since the time slot is known (with a certain accuracy) in which the mobile station measures the received signal level in its monitoring slot, and since also the actual transmitted power is known in that time slot, the average power transmitted on the particular channel which is measured can be calculated (over an averaging period). Then, the signal level measured by the mobile station is transmitted to the second base transceiver station using the Slow Associated Control Channel (SACCH) and passed on to the base station controller where it is compared with the average transmitted power. The actual pathloss, L, is estimated by calculating the difference between the average power transmitted by the first base transceiver station and the average signal level received by the mobile station in the concerned time slot according to the following equation:
L=a=10 dB log[PTXAV/PRXAV]xe2x80x83xe2x80x83(Eq. 1)
where a denotes the attenuation between a mobile station and the first base transceiver station, i.e. the pathloss, L, therebetween, PTXAV denotes the averaged power of the signal transmitted from the first base transceiver station, and PRXAV denotes the averaged signal strength of the signal received by the mobile station.
The present invention is particularly suited for the usual transmission systems wherein the base transceiver stations are essentially synchronized. Due to the synchronization of the base transceiver stations, the timing relation between a particular mobile station and its base transceiver station as well as the neighboring base transceiver stations is accurately known, and, hence, the actual pathloss between a particular mobile station and all base transceiver stations concerned can be calculated with a very high accuracy.
Thus, since the present invention enables the reliable estimation of the actual pathloss with a high accuracy, control of the non-constant power of the BCCH carrier by the base transceiver station becomes possible. In detail, for a handover process, the mobile station is allocated to that base transceiver station which has the highest received signal level. Therefore, in order to assure a communication having the best possible transmission quality already at the beginning of the radio link, it is indispensable to know the actual pathloss between the mobile station and the base transceiver station.
In addition, since it has become possible to effect a power control of the BCCH carrier, the power consumption of the transmission can be significantly decreased. If the BCCH carrier is power controlled, it is possible to individually control the transmitting powers at the corresponding frequencies used by the base transceiver stations so that the use of the frequency spectrum and, thus, the spectral efficiency can be maximized in the mobile radio network. This permits the following advantages:
1) Considerable reduction of the generated interference.
2) The method and the apparatus according to the present invention allow more traffic than the prior art systems since the same radio channels can be re-used at a shorter distance than has been possible with the prior art systems.
3) Hence, the capacity of a mobile radio system incorporating the method and/or the apparatus according to the present invention can be improved.
According to the present invention, only little additional equipment is necessary for determination of the pathloss, but no change of the transmission system is required. That is, the method and the apparatus according to the present invention still fully conform to the GSM recommendation.
The preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings.